Paul Klee Quotes
-
I must begin, not with hypothesis, but with specific instances, no matter how minute.
-
The artist of today is more than an improved camera, he is more complex, richer, and wider. He is a creature on the earth and a creature within the whole, that is, a creature on a star among stars.
-
He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.
-
All the things an artist must be: poet, explorer of nature, philosopher!
-
The way to form transcends its own destination, goes beyond the end of the way itself.
-
A line is a dot that went for a walk.
-
My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.
-
My hand is entirely the implement of a distant sphere. It is not my head that functions but something else, something higher, something somewhere remote. I must have great friends there, dark as well as bright. They are all very kind to me.
-
When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.
-
Art does not reflect what is seen, rather it makes the hidden visible.
-
The more horrifying the world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.
-
In earlier days, even as a child, the beauty of landscapes was quite clear to me. A background for the soul's moods. Now dangerous moments occur when Nature tries to devour me; at such times I am annihilated, but at peace. This would be fine for old people but I... I am my life's debtor, for I have given promises.
-
Spatial art does not begin with a poetic mood or idea, but with construction of one or more figures, with the harmonizing of several colors and tones, or with the devaluation of spatial relationships and so on.
-
A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.
-
I still come closest to success with drawing. When I use color the results are dubious, for these painfully gained experiences bear less fruit.
-
Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn.
-
All is well with me. The rain doesn't reach me, my room is well heated, what more can one ask for? There's no shortage of work, either.
-
Gradually compositions make an appearance again. Political - satirical - conceits expressed in one figure or a few.
-
Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no beautiful woman, none at all, because you are never certain that a still far more beautiful woman will not appear and completely shame the supposed beauty of the first.
-
Nothing can be rushed. It must grow, it should grow of itself, and if the time ever comes for that work, then so much the better!
-
The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.
-
What my art probably lacks is a kind of passionate humanity... There is no sensuous relationship, not even the noblest, between myself and the many.